Did My Heart Love Till Now?
by Shimegami-chan
Summary: One-shot. When all the company you have in the world is yourself, it's painful to dwell on what might have been.


A/N: Uh...this is just one of those things.

...Yes, this_ is _an EarthBound fic. It's short, so if you don't 'get it' at first, just keep reading!

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**Did My Heart Love Till Now?**

_by Shimegami-chan_

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_Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!  
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. _

_-Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet"_

"Clarice, Clarice," her name a sigh upon his consciousness; a sweet song that only he could hear. It had been a year since he had been cast into this sandy hell, this torture-without-salvation, with no sign of her. He could not move; he was paralyzed and near-blind, near-deaf, senses dulled by the extreme heat and its effects on his already-delirious thoughts. If he could move, he thought to crawl to her side, wherever she was, and make apology for every wrong that had come betwixt them.

In his loneliness, he often recalled his last moments with her, playing out in a torrid scene in his mind. The fighting, and then teetering on the cusp of making up, he having apologized over and over for his insensitivity until she regarded him with hesitance. She was lovelier than ever; the creamy colour of her skin accented with radiant white in the sunlight. She whispered in softly, "I'm sorry, Phillipe, but this is the end for me. I'm going to a place where you can't follow."

_No, _he wanted to scream, _I won't let you go. I don't want something worse to happen and you face it alone._

Already she'd been hoarded into a prison camp of sorts, and he had resolutely followed, determined not to let their final parting be on the terrible terms of their disagreement. Now they huddled, separate, on a large, golden hill, staring at one another, stalemate. He was shocked at how easily she had come to terms with what might be the end of her life.

"I'm so sorry," she repeated, looking genuinely sad. "I wish we'd never fought. It was all my fault."

Phillipe had frozen in shock and joy. _Clarice wanted him back_. He had suffered from so many delusions of inadequacy since they had been apart, and her voice reached him here in its sincerity. So sure was he that she meant her words that he finally felt relief, and his demons left him suddenly in peace. "Oh, Clarice...I feel the same..."

He wanted to say "_I love you...let's never fight again,_" but then the ground shook suddenly and he was forced to cling to the surface on which they stood, looking desperately at her. Instead he said "Then, we must let go!"

"What?" She returned his look of desparation with a confused one. "I can't, I'll fall..."

"You have to!" Phillipe pressed, near tears. "We can't stay here. Let's run away together, someplace where we don't have to fear for our lives. Please, Clarice--! Let go!"

Their gazes met and a moment of understanding passed between them. "All right," she said resignedly. "I'll do it for you. We'll go together, on three, all right? One, two..."

On the third count she released her hold and fell away, letting gravity take her until she was swallowed up into the yellow abyss below. Phillipe loosened his grip and slid off the curved surface of the world, but his flight was abruptly stopped by folds of blue material. He became ensnared in a crevice in the denim, tossed helplessly about by its tumultuous activity, all the while crying out for Clarice, telling her to wait, wait, he was caught...

That was how they had been separated, he remembered, the last sight of Clarice's beautiful white form falling away from him more like a nightmare than a dream. Once Phillipe had freed himself from the blue material and tumbled endlessly into the sandy void, he had lain since, pining for her and hoping she had survived, unable to move.

He was still pining, still yearning, still baking when a shadow fell across him one day, a sure sign that another human had happened by and was still somehow among the living. The difference this time was that the human - a boy in a red baseball cap with two human companions - noticed Phillipe and stopped to query him. This was abnormal and uplifting at the same time; no human had ever bothered to speak to him, whether they had taken note of his presence in the sand or not. At first Phillipe was struck by the apparant cruelty of the soft-skinned beings, but he came to realize that this was simply just because humans were not perceptive to the troubles of his kind, and did not realize or care that Phillipe did not wish to be lying helplessly about in the desert. He reacted as such. (Why would you feel like talking to a tiny black sesame like me?)

He paused to hear the human's reply. The girl-companion seemed extremely sympathetic, while the boy-companion looked as warm and uncomfortable as he. The baseball-capped human explained that Phillipe had caught his eye, and asked why he looked so miserable. Amazing! Somehow the boy had sensed his unhappiness. Glumly, the little seed tried to explain, communicating as best he could in the language of humans. (I wanna apologize to the white sesame that I hurt before. If I could just see her...)

Again, the human did a most extraordinary thing. He cheerfully replied that the group had already encountered Clarice on their walk through the desert, and she had told them of her lost love who was elsewhere in the desert. Clarice wanted him to know that she still loved him, and so this boy and his companions had been carefully watching the sand for any sign of Phillipe as they walked. Despite his paralysis, despite his loneliness, Phillipe's heart sang at the human's words. She was all right! She missed him! He could not believe his good fortune. As the group walked away, Phillipe turned his eyes to the sun and wept in joy. No tears issued from his glossy black husk, but he felt that he could have cried enough to turn the barren desert into a riverbed and float his way to her.

_"Clarice, Clarice!"_ He continued to sigh for hours and hours, more content than ever but compelled to speak until his voice was torn from him by the ruthless desert air; no sound left to give. He was sure that she would hear him all the same.

_-end-_

A/N: In case I need to be point-blank, this was the story of how the two sesame seeds in the Dusty Dunes Desert became separated. Hope you enjoyed! I promise to write something with less-obscure characters next time.


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